Want Your People to be Energized, Efficient, and Effective? Then You Need to Create and Clearly Communicate Your Vision.

The following is adapted from Lead Well by Ken Falke.

One of the big challenges people in the military face is that officers transfer every two years, while the enlisted people may stay for up to five years. In other words, you get your commander’s vision for your unit — we called it commander’s intent — for two years, and that’s it.

On top of that, your new commander’s intent is often different from the officer who came before, and normally different from the officer who follows. And, in their two years, they spend the first six months getting to know the unit and its troops and their last six months worrying about their next job.

Even worse? Many times, officers never clearly articulate their vision for their tour of duty.

The result: There are no long-term plans for the future, and the lack of a clear and shared vision results in chaos.

The Value of a Shared Purpose

This problem isn’t limited to the military. Corporate leaders also often lack a clear, shared vision — which is a big problem. Why? Because people want and need to feel fulfilled in their work. People take satisfaction in knowing that they’re working toward a shared purpose.

If they’re simply showing up to collect a paycheck, your organization can’t succeed. It’s the leader’s responsibility to prevent that — and that begins with defining and conveying your vision.

Speak it, write it, draw it. Keep it simple and make sure it’s understood. Repeat it frequently. Everyone on your team must know where they are going and why.

And I’m not suggesting that your vision is something on a tablet you hand down from on high. A good leader is curious, a teacher and a student, and a constant learner — and they use those traits to develop a vision for their organization.

Developing a Vision

When you walk into a company where everyone fully understands what they’re there to do, you can feel it right away. The energy, efficiency, and effectiveness are evident.

But you don’t see that often enough. You’re more likely to walk into a lobby, and there’ll be a vision statement and core values posted on the wall — with everybody just walking by it. It’s not ingrained in the culture of the company. Employees don’t even see it anymore. It might as well be taken down.

There’s a difference between a vision and a vision that matters and is understood. Clear vision begins with how it’s developed: collectively.

A good leader doesn’t simply walk around the office, handing out their vision, posting it on the wall. It’s not just you as a leader declaring, “This is my vision!”

Good leaders sit down with their management team and say, “Hey, here’s what I’m thinking.” They foster a conversation, a real give and take. True collaboration is what you need to create a vision that matters.

And that work never stops. You need to be willing to challenge and change your own vision too.

Revisiting the Vision

Ever since my first company, the process we’ve followed involves gathering the management team at an offsite meeting every fall. Today at Boulder Crest, we have 35 employees, and 14 of us join in the annual offsite.

In the month before we meet, every manager sits with their teams to get their input on a SWOT analysis: a worksheet that lays out strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats from their point of view.

When the managers gather, we begin by looking at our vision and asking, “Is this still where we’re going? Is this really what we believe in and want to do as a team? Can you get up every day excited about going to work and be satisfied in understanding our mission and the role you’re playing in helping us get there?”

Having revisited our vision, the managers assess what we’ve accomplished in the year so far and what remains to be done.

Out of those conversations, we adjust our vision if we need to, and from there, we create our new three-year strategic plan, with very specific goals for the upcoming year.

Your Vision is a Living Thing

You need to think of your vision as a living thing. In so many organizations, it’s much less than that.

I’ve done some consulting with small businesses that wrote their vision statement along with their business plan 10 years ago, and they haven’t looked at it since. Their employees have no idea what lies in the dust-covered book.

In Boulder Crest’s 10 years, we have changed our vision once and tweaked it five or six other times. As we’ve grown and evolved, we’ve fundamentally changed what we do at Boulder Crest — so we’ve fundamentally changed and evolved our vision, too. And, if you want to maintain your organization’s energy and effectiveness, you need to do the same.

For more advice on how to create and implement an effective, powerful vision for your company, you can find Lead Well on Amazon.

Ken Falke spent twenty-one years in the US Navy as a bomb disposal specialist, leading troops on thousands of high-risk missions. After retiring from the Navy in 2002, Ken started his first company, A-T Solutions, a counter-terrorism company, and in 2008 sold the business. In 2011, Ken started his second company, Shoulder 2 Shoulder, and sold his stock to his business partner in 2017. In addition to Ken’s two for-profit companies, he founded two nonprofit organizations, beginning with the EOD Warrior Foundation to support the families of severely wounded military bomb disposal personnel. This work inspired Ken and his family to donate thirty-seven acres of their estate in Bluemont, Virginia, and millions of dollars to build Boulder Crest Foundation in 2013 — the nation’s first privately funded wellness center dedicated exclusively to combat veterans, first responders, and their families — and go on to establish Boulder Crest Arizona and the Boulder Crest Institute for Posttraumatic Growth in 2017.